


Sing Down the Dusk

by miss_pryss



Category: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_pryss/pseuds/miss_pryss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I had thought us perfectly aligned, but to my surprise and pleasure I found that room had existed, unperceived by me, for our two selves to twine more completely around each other."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Down the Dusk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alwaysamy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysamy/gifts).



There was the feeling of an echo when I stood at the altar with Mr. Rochester—Edward, now, my Edward—for the second time. It was as if a stray moment had emerged from some other life. 

Had it truly been he and I, at that other altar in the little church by Thornfield, a lifetime ago? 

Were those two people—he all wild spirits and impatience, and she dazzled with happiness and muddled with confusion—our former selves? I struggled to reconcile it. What had we in common with them? I was now a woman grown, with my own means and my own independence. Edward was steadied where he had been erratic, devoted where he had been violent in his passion. We were, in a word, older. And more—we were now truly equals.

But even as these various idle thoughts crossed my mind, they faded just as an echo fades. I was here, now, and there was business to be seen to. I looked over to Edward, standing at my side, facing the priest—a small, beetle-browed man. Edward looked a little lost, I thought, adrift. Not for the first time, I wondered at his bravery in facing the world every day through a blank screen. My hand crept out and I caught his in mine, pressing his fingers. A little of the humor I’d become accustomed to seeing on his face returned, and he returned my grasp, his hand warm and strong, enveloping my own. Reassured, I turned my attention back to the priest. 

The wedding was brief, quiet, and entirely without pomp. I suppose that to an unconnected onlooker it would have seemed dry, or unsentimental. We had entered at ten and we departed not long after, our morning’s business completed. 

I do not mean for you to imagine that I was unmoved at that moment, that in my eyes it was merely an errand. That day was and remains the most important of my life. In that moment I tied my fate, finally and firmly, to Edward’s. The strange connection that had run through us since my first days at Thornfield had gained an external symbol: the slender gold band, plain and unadorned, that circled my finger.

We were married. 

We stepped out into the bright morning. I blinked after the dimness of the church, and halted us for a moment until my vision cleared. Edward, confident and vigorous as he had become, was still entirely dependent on my hand on his arm to guide him. He would not be served well by a guide whose sight was as clouded as his. 

As my eyes adjusted, the first thing that resolved itself was Edward, his face turned towards me, expectant. I smiled, though he could not see it, because he looked— _happy_. His brow was as untroubled as I had seen it for a long time; perhaps ever. 

“Well, Jane,” said he, a crooked smile animating his craggy features, “and now I have caught you for good, my little bird. Will you fret in your cage?” His hand moved carefully until it arrived to rest tenderly on the side of my face. I leaned into the touch, enjoying the solid warmth of it. 

“No, Sir,” I said, “for it is no cage at all, but my home, and yours.” 

A kiss followed, not our first, but our first as married people. His lips were dry and soft, brushing over my own. It was simple, brief, nearly chaste, as all our kisses had been, but it set my heart to pounding, made me breathless. A look at Edward’s face told me he was in the same state as I—the color was high on his cheeks. 

His hand dropped from my face, and I caught it in my own. Lifting it, I pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Married! We were suddenly at liberty to love each other openly as we had long loved privately. Little as I cared about the sanction of others, I felt nearly giddy at the idea. Edward must have returned my feelings, because he moved suddenly to embrace me. Both of his strong arms wrapped around me, his hand pressing my head against his breast, and I returned the embrace. We stood thus tightly interlocked, silent, for a long time. 

Life cannot be all heedless passion, however, and the street in front of the church was hardly the place for any further indulgence. Disentangling ourselves, Edward and I turned our course towards home. 

We said little as we walked. As usual, he rested his remaining hand on my arm and we made our slow, careful progress, accustomed by now to this odd way of moving together. Here and there as some interesting feature caught my eye I told him of it: a wasp weaving along the fence rail, a tenant farmer patching a wall, a fox scurrying across the road, its red tail waving like a flag. 

Neither of us spoke again of our morning’s task. I believe we both thought on it a great deal—I know I did, and as we walked I often looked up to Mr. Rochester’s face to see a look even more far-away than his blind gaze was accustomed to conferring on him. I know not what his precise thoughts were, but as for mine—

It struck me then and strikes me still as a great mystery that two people as perfectly and indelibly united by Nature as Edward and I are should nonetheless find a still greater and more perfect unity with each other through the intervention of God and Man—through marriage. If asked before the deed was done, I should have said such a thing was not possible, that our wedding would be a mere—though necessary—formality. I had thought us perfectly aligned, but to my surprise and pleasure I found that room had existed, unperceived by me, for our two selves to twine more completely around each other, and they had done so already in just an hour of married life. I have never cared a great deal for the regard of society, and I still do not. It was not any concern about the eyes of the world resting on us and finding us wanting that motivated our marriage—that honor belongs entirely to the almighty—but it still settled something for good in my breast to be able to say, _he is mine and no man can tear us asunder_.

The rest of the day passed in pleasant, ordinary occupation: I informed John and Mary of our recent marriage and accepted their rough but sincere congratulations. There were letters to be written—to Adèle, to my cousins—and after supper, our usual walk. 

We were brief, having taken more exercise than usual that morning with our errand in town. I led us down to the river and we tarried there a few minutes, listening to the thrushes sing down the dusk in the woods. Edward, behind me, pulled me up against his great, deep chest, his arm crossed across my waist, and pressed his face into the back of my neck. We stood there, as the light grew dim, his breath soft and warm on my skin and the birds singing like the very angels, and I thought my heart would burst for happiness.

+++++

A wedding, of course, carries with it the inevitability of a wedding night. I confess I was ill-prepared for mine. I knew only what gossip I’d overheard at Lowood as a girl, hushed speculation working its way from cot to cot. At the time I’d paid it little attention; the likelihood of me marrying seemed so remote as to render the question entirely academic. 

There could hardly have been anything less academic than the situation I now found myself in: leading my Edward—my husband!—to the bed, both of us in nightclothes, the covers turned down in welcome. I hoped he would not notice that I shook a little, my heart beating so fast it rattled my frame. 

He noticed immediately, of course. “Jane,” he said as he sat on the edge of the bed, finding my hand unerringly with his when I tried to draw away. “Are you afraid?” 

I could not lie to him. “A little,” I replied. 

“Of me?” 

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe I am capable of fearing you, or you of frightening me.” 

“Then what?” he said. “I will not hurt you, Jane.”

“I should hope not,” I said a little tartly. 

Edward smiled. “What, then? I have run out of obvious (if silly) fears to guess at; you will have to enlighten me.”

“I will be bad at it,” I declared in a rush. “I know nothing about these things, I lack all experience. I only love you. But you will find me rather a confused and inequal partner.” 

Edward laughed out loud. I was torn between offense and relief; relief won the day when he pulled me in for another embrace. Pressed against him with just the thin fabric of our nightclothes between us, I could feel heat pouring off him. It made me feel somewhat heated, myself. 

“Jane,” he said. “Consider: I am both blind and lame—an unenviable position in any circumstances but especially vexing when there is such a wonder to see, and so much I would like to touch. Of the two of us, you have the least reason for regret.”

It had not occurred to me that Edward might feel some chagrin about his physical state; I was ashamed. “Forgive me,” I said, “I was too wrapped up in my own petty worries. Of course you must know you have nothing to fear.”

“Then, Jane,” he rumbled in my ear, his breath stirring my hair gently, “we have neither of us anything to fear, and both of us a great deal to look forward to.”

++++++

You will forgive me if I draw the curtain of charity here and assure you only that what followed certainly had its moments of inelegance and confusion but on the whole was deemed a great success by both participants. 

“There now,” Edward murmured in my ear when we lay entwined in the wreckage of the bedclothes somewhat later that evening. “Are you still afraid, my dove?” He trailed the backs of his fingers down my neck, as one might stroke a pet cat. It made me shiver a little, small shocks of pleasure still sparking here and there in my body. 

“Only of loving you too much,” I said, my fingers creeping down his front, “and of wanting...this...too often.” My whole body felt heavy, and a sweet lassitude had crept over me. I stifled a yawn. 

“I think you will find,” Edward said, fumbling with the covers until we were warmly cocooned together, “that there is no such thing as ‘too often,’ as far as I am concerned. Perhaps a rest would be in order first, however.” 

We slept.


End file.
